Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/599

Rh operation in the United States and 9,949 in Canada; the estimated gross earnings of which were, in round numbers: United States, $770,684,908; Canada, $33,421,767; and the net profits: United States, $268,064,496; Canada, $7,826,872. The year's freight traffic over those lines was: United States, 390,074,749 tons; Canada, 13,716,462; while the passengers carried a mile were estimated at: United States, 8,778,581,061. In Canada it is not given; but the total number of passengers carried was 9,984,354, against 334,570,766 in the United States. The business transacted over the lines was handled by an estimated force of 1,600,000 employés, whose combined earnings, while unobtainable with accuracy, must have been enormous. Considering the magnitude of the interests involved—not only the value of the property operated, but the vast number of human beings who freely intrust their lives to the railroads—and the growing demand for increased speed in transportation, it needs little illustration to show that their responsibilities as common carriers are such as make it of paramount importance to their managements to secure and retain the services of the most experienced and reliable citizens obtainable; thereby obviating, as far as possible, the often fearful consequences of inexperience and negligence, and promoting public confidence by the knowledge that the lives and property of their patrons will not be subjected to unnecessary hazard. There are few employments in the country more onerous and exacting, and not any where negligence, inexperience, or absent-mindedness has more fatal consequences than those embraced in the operating departments of railways; hence the necessity of protecting themselves against the depressing influences to which most men, struggling against present or impending pecuniary difficulties, are susceptible, must be readily apparent.

In periods of activity such classes of labor are frequently overtasked, while in times of depressed trade their earnings are generally decreased by actual reduction of wages, or variable employment, to a bare subsistence. Then, when disability or old age overtakes them, few possess reserve earnings from which to draw for the necessaries of life.

In the report of the English Select Committee on Civil-Service Superannuation, it was stated that the dread of poverty had a very injurious effect on the minds and health of business-men, artisans, etc. The celebrated Dr. Farr, of England, when consulted upon the advantages of remuneration, partly by salaries and partly by provision for old age, thus sums up the evidence and arguments in favor of such an arrangement:

"In the first place, superannuation is a guarantee of fidelity; in the second place, it encourages efficient officers; in the third place, it retains good men in the service; in the fourth place, it induces men